The Georgia Problem – Hold an International European Championship?

There have been questions aplenty over the last year about how to give Georgia more exposure to Tier 1 rugby.

The main suggestions seem to be 6 Nations promotion/relegation OR expanding the current 6 Nations to 7. I have been thinking for a while that neither of these solutions work in terms of pleasing all parties.

My suggestion – feel free to tear it to pieces, laud it with praise, or otherwise – is to hold a European Championship once every 4 years in between Rugby World Cups. Here’s how I think it could work…

Who would play and in what format?

If you look at the current state of European rugby, there are 8 teams who would be reasonably competitive against each other: 6 Nations plus Georgia and Romania.

‘Hold on’, I hear you say, ‘Romania? I thought we were talking about Georgia here?’ Herein lies some of the problem with expanding the 6 Nations to 7; how long will it be before we need to expand it again to include another of Europe’s up and coming teams?

Those of you who are up to date on your Rugby Europe Championship (6 Nations B as it were) will know that the most recent champions are actually Romania. They beat Georgia in this year’s competition and they also dispatched Samoa as recently as the Autumn Internationals. But the reality is, Georgia and Romania are not the only countries in Europe where rugby is on the rise.

Take a look at the 25,000 crowd that appeared at the Spanish Copa del Rey rugby final last year. Or have a look at Russian club side Krasny Yar’s recent defeat of Stade Francais in the European Challenge Cup. Also, both Spain and Russia have beaten Rugby World Cup qualifier Namibia this year; they are arguably both better than a current World Cup team!

Rugby in Europe is on the verge of something big and there needs to be a system in place to accommodate this growth.

Expansion = Devaluation

I believe that adding these teams to an expanded 6 Nations would devalue the current product. However, if you made a separate tournament which gives them a chance to develop and catch up to the big boys, it would be massively beneficial for European rugby in the long term. So I propose:

12 teams (6 Nations plus Rugby Europe Championship)

4 groups of 3

The top team in each group goes into ‘Championship’ semi-finals, 2nd place teams go into ‘Plate’ semis, 3rd place teams go into ‘Bowl’ semis.

Groups based on current world rankings as of 21st Nov 2017

Each team would play 4 games overall (based on current world rankings, please do not take offence if you think your team would do better!):

Player welfare and drubbings

This structure wouldn’t be much of strain on player welfare as 4 games per team is virtually equivalent to a summer tour.

My only concern is over some of the 6 Nations teams handing out drubbings to the lower lights of the European game. You would hope that in 4 years’ time the teams from Germany and Belgium would be somewhat more competitive. Given the upward trajectory of rugby in Europe and the renewed interest in rugby due to Olympic inclusion, there should be improvements, but still, concerns remain.

When and where would you play it?

In terms of the when, how about having it in between Rugby World Cups?

The 1st one being in 2021, which is in 4 years’ time. This four-yearly cycle has the added bonus of not clashing with the football (soccer) World Cup or the Euros. It would give European sports fans a great international competition to get behind that could potentially – a fair few years down the line – make rugby massive in Europe.

Fitting into the calendar

Perhaps more of an important question though is, how would you fit it into rugby’s already crowded calendar?

At a time when player welfare and fixture overload is such a pertinent issue, this is perhaps the key obstacle to a tournament of this kind. I propose two potential timeslots in the current rugby calendar: replacing the summer tour once every 4 years OR having a European Rugby Championship in place of the 6 Nations once every 4 years.

My preferred option is the former, but if you were to hold the first one in 2021, this would clash with the Lions tour. Lions tours are one of the crown jewels in the rugby calendar, so I think it’s essential to protect them at all costs. So, to avoid a clash with a European Championship in 2021, why not move the Lions tours forward one year? This means that the next tour to South Africa would be in 2020.

Therefore, the European Rugby Championship wouldn’t clash with any major football (soccer) tournaments. This is essential as it means that European sports fans would really get behind it and potentially make it into a huge event.

If this is impossible, there is also the 2nd option of replacing the 6 Nations in February once every 4 years. This is not my preferred solution as the 6 Nations is already an incredibly successful product (highest average attendance of any international sporting competition in the world, along with a plethora of other healthy statistics). But it is useful to consider it as another alternative to the summer test window.

Where would you hold it?

Well, the prime candidate for hosting, I would suggest, is Ireland after recently being spurned for the Rugby World Cup. I’m sure they would host a great competition and they will be desperate to prove to the rugby community that they would have hosted a fantastic World Cup if they had been chosen for 2023. After that, other European nations could bid for the tournament and it would perhaps give those countries who would be unlikely to host the World Cup a chance to hold an international rugby tournament.

In Summary

I’m sure that a European Rugby Championship would be great for the development of international rugby and would capture the imagination of those European rugby countries on the verge of something big in the global game.

As far as World Rugby is concerned, surely they would be salivating at the prospect of having rugby as a popular sport in big European economies like Germany, Russia and Spain? I can’t really see any drawbacks at the moment, but I’d love to hear any feedback on the idea, so please don’t hold back in the comments below.

Author: George Wood

I am, and have always been, obsessed by sports. I have a particular interest in the development of rugby globally and spend hours watching, researching and reading about obscure rugby news and games from around the world.
I previously had a 6 year stint in China, where I set up an expat football team in Wuhan. I now reside in London, working as a statistical analyst, spending large amounts of my free time watching sports with my wife.
More of my rugby thoughts on Twitter @GeorgeWood9187

25 COMMENTS

Great article George. The issue with 2020 lions tour is a possible rugby media clash with the Olympics. Plus there is an obligation that if teams tour Europe in November then Europe needs to reciprocate. There is already a lot of angst over the disparity in income between North and South.

So if you want to have a European competition then it’ll have to replace the 6 Nations window. The other consideration is that the European unions rely on the 6N for at least two home games and they won’t want to lose that. So a European cup would have to offer games to a variety of venues and not a single nation.

Yep my thoughts as well, if you were to hold it in a summer tour window the main opponents would be SAANZAR as they would lose out on a fair bit of income. Maybe Autumn test income could be shared 1 year out of 4? But if so I’m sure the big northern hemisphere teams would want a guaranteed recoup on their money lost from any replacement tournament. I don’t think there would be much of an Olympics clash though because the Lions is in June/July and the Olympics usually happens in August.
And yes if the 6 nations were to be replaced once every 4 years then the hosting would have to be split around different countries because I’m sure current 6 nations unions wouldn’t want to decrease their current income.

Great idea and a nice read too George. I think the only way to make space in the calendar would be to replace a summer tour. In order for the southern unions to agree, northern teams would need to offer revenue sharing when they host southern teams. Even then, who would the southern teams face? They already play each other too often, 3 Bledisloe cup games a year is overload. Would a similar southern competition fill that gap? It could involve SANZAAR plus the Pacific Islands, Japan, the USA, Canada, Uruguay and Namibia.

Good article George, I’ve suggested a knock out cup competition along the lines of the FA Cup but this type of competition would work just as well. I don’t think there would be any need to move the Lion’s tour either, in fact playing the competition at the same time as a Lion’s tour would make it more competitive for the weaker nations and allow the Home Nations to test out new players. It would also be easy enough to arrange matches to maximise TV coverage. More rugby for everyone!

Interesting thoughts Paul. Having somewhat weaker home nations teams would even things up a bit. France would still be able to pick a 1st team, although given the recent state of the French international team I don’t think they’re exactly going to be head and shoulders above everyone else.

This is probably the best solution to avoid messing up SH countries’ schedules and causing riots by doing anything to the 6 Nations. For 2/3 of the Lions tours there is a time delay so the games may not even conflict (and fewer people would care as much about the matches against Super Rugby teams).

My only concern would be that people wouldn’t take it seriously and consider it a developmental tournament, even though they would still be capped players. When Georgia almost beat Wales you heard the cries of “Yeah they almost won buttttt it wasn’t against starters.” While this should only really affect viewership in the T1 Nations it may have a run off effect of either fewer fans attending games or less hype in the T2 Nations. Scores will be much less lopsided though.

I think having such a tournament on at the same time as the Lions tour wouldn’t be too bad in the begnning. This would even things out in the Home Nations (teams contributing more players getting weaker) and make games with Tier 2 nations more competitve. France would be the biggest benefiter of this, but it wouldn’t hurt them to win something for once.

I agree that sanzaar, wouldn’t be happy for financial reasons but I think, move the lions tour to 2020, and do move the tournament from country to country every 4 years but this actually opens an opportunity for tier 2 development in the Southern Hemisphere, their tournament could be to extend the current rugby championship and include japan and the 3 Pacific nations have a league structure (each team plays 7 match’s) then 1st plays 8th, 2nd plays 7th and so on, this would give Japan and the Pacific nations more exposure and increase the competitiveness of world rugby.

In general, it is important to have European championship, especially for emerging countries. I would support an idea to have it once in 4 years. However, I do not like the suggested format – 4 groups with 3 teams. In this case t2 nations (like Georgia or Romania) is given an opportunity to play with t1 nations only once. In my opinion it is crucial to increase t2 vs t1 up to two games. Let’s take format which is used for U20 WC. The tournament covers a period of 7 weeks (from February to march) and replaces (only once in 4 years) 6Ns and “Nations Cup”. 3 groups with 4 teams in each. Eight best teams advance to quarterfinals: Two best teams of each group + two two best runner-ups, followed by semi-finals, 3rd place and final game. Those four teams which do not qualify for semi-finals will play two more games for 5th and 7th places. The rest four teams will play two more games for 9th and 11th places. Thus, best four teams play 6 games, others 5 games each.

Yep I think all potential formats are worth considering. I really agree with your point that tier 2/3 countries need more fixtures with tier 1. In between any potential championships there needs to be more scheduled fixtures, which will improve the competitiveness of the developing nations down the line.

George, thanks for quick response. In my post I missed two very important issues. First, the suggested tournament should be held under 6Ns auspices, not to damage their financial interest. Second, the tournament should take place in 2020 or 2022. As you know for EPCR teams 2021 and 2022 are 2023 WC qualification years.

To play every 4years 3 games no thanks. Georgia is looking for systematic challenge every year we’d six nation teams , I now is not gonna happened for Georgia you guys don’t want us . My opinion to Georgian rugby federation to look for different championships like pacific challenge cup Japan ?? Tonga ?? Samoa ?? Fiji ?? Georgia ??

I absolutely think Georgia deserves more than I explained in their article. There should be more scheduled matches between tier 1 and developing nations, between any potential ‘European cup’ or otherwise. Maybe in the long term the 6 nations is something that will be expanded when European rugby as a whole is expanded. But until then I feel this kind of competition is a good stop gap in the interim.

I agree with the following statement that European Championship will be great oppurtunity for improvement of countries like Georgia and Romania.but I don’t want to see this games once in a four year,It would be annual championship. I dont like when 6nations chief say that Georgia isn’t strong enough to attend this competition, and Is Italy ready for that when they have been played for 17 years and look at the score board. Differances sometimes is over 50 points.

Yep ideally an annual championship would be great. The problem unfortunately with this from a British isles perspective is that if you played the tournament suggested in the article, you would miss out on some classic 5 nations fixtures. For example, for a lot of Scotland/England fans, the Scotland , England game would be the biggest game of the year. Take this game out of the calendar and there would be a lot of disgruntled Scotland/England fans. A lot of people wouldn’t be happy if you took one of the most historic annual rugby encounters out of the yearly schedule.
At the same time, if you don’t expand the 6 nations, this is unfair on emerging European countries. Something does need to be done to develop the game in Europe, but so far the tournament in the article is the most viable solution I can think of in the short term. That plus more fixtures between tier 1 v tier 2/3 teams in between any major tournaments.

George! I can agree with your idea but I have a proposal for the competition format. Let’s think that each year in ERC and 6N the T2 and T1 teams compete with each other, so let’s get that scores as the ones retained for the competition (as a first leg), that makes only needed 2 + 2 weeks for the tournament. The composition of the pools can be 3 of 4 teams (ranked as 1st 6N to 6th Play-off winner between ERC and ERT for the draw, and not with WR rank), being only played T1 v T2 games in group games then you have 3 1st + the best 2nd, 2 2nd + 2 best 3rd, worst 3rd + 3 4th for having their ‘semi-finals’ and then the final.
The point is that Home Nations + Italy won’t like this. When they withdraw the U18 European Competition because Scotland and Ireland must be relegated, they did show us that they would not play this except if they must do it.
The other point of Georgians, they want to be included in the big competition, as I can imagine, that won’t happen at least in 10 – 20 years. So, this competition could give you a chance for playing 2 matches against T1 and if you continue to play against a T1 each november that would be a 2 extra matches.

Other solution for playing more T1 games against T2 nations can be stop direct qualification for RWC and WR doesn’t allow that a closed tournament can give direct spots. That would push in two directions: 1) maybe 6N offers a play-off between first ERC and last 6N or 2) Direct games in T2 nations as they were in the 90’s.

Hi all, italian fan here
If italy is not doing well in the 6N it doesn’t necessarily mean someone else could do better, it’s something that needs to be verified
Italy has won the right to take part to the tournament based on solid results, i mean matches won against tier-1 oppositions such as ireland and france, same thing should happen with another team enforcing these demands
A National team willing to take part to the 6N should prove the solidity of their claim by showing real results as happened to italy

This scheme is valid for every competion and is valid for every nation and also every sport, it should be a Universal principle

Georgia had a chance against Wales and couldn’ t snatch a draw, next november there will be a test match against italy and by 2020 World Rugby has modified the calendar to let tier-2 nations test themselves more often than the usual once a decade now in use

There is little to be said according to me, if a team wins regularly it has every right to claim the participation to a tier-1 tournament, in order to get these results it needs a chance to play

This is a very good idea but I see a few issues with it. The first is player workload, holding this competition during a Lions year or moving the Lions year would mean that the Lions would be playing straight after a world cup year which would be very demanding for them and make them less competitive. During a Lions year means weakened tier 1 nations although this isn’t a bad thing it would mean that room would have to be found somewhere in the schedule and probably be taken out of club games (I think club season should be shortened anyway). This may mean less appeal for T1 fans as the top players aren’t involved and similarly T2 fans. A competition every 4 years also isn’t going to do much to increase the level of exposure to the rest of Europe. I believe a promotion relegation playoff between the bottom 6 Nation team and winner of the lower 6 Nations over two legs home and away so each team has a chance to prove that they are better (play one in summer and one in autumn). This means whichever team is in the 6 Nations can say they truly deserve to be there. While this might cost some big fixtures such as Calcutta cup or Triple crown these games can be played during the autumn or summer windows if needed.

Hi George. I personally think it’s a great idea. I’d propose playing it instead of the autumn internationals on the year of a lions tour. Tier one sides would then be playing similar opposition as they would otherwise(2 tier 1 games and a tier 2 game) if only slightly lower which would help them ease back into things and if they rest players it could help the Germany’s and Belgiums to be more competitive

Great article and some super replies due to its historical and financial importance the 6 nations will not be changed holding this kind of tournament is the next best thing to expanding the 6Nations. I feel the ideal time would be when the Lions tour is on as this will make it a more competitive tournament its pointless having a one sided tournament. Having a competition such as this means T2 countries are playing T1 countries every second year as you have the World cup. The benefit of the extra revenue generated will help the T2 countries sustain their development and help ensure they are continually competitive as every country can have a purple patch when it comes to having a group of world class players at a certain time.